Deep Nurturing - Our Own Words

Our Archived Words

Tell Me a Story

Posted by Elaine on August 13, 2004

The greatest shame that my Grandma Goodman had was that she was illiterate; she couldn't read or write in English. If she could read or write in Russian, her native language, she never let me know or demonstrated that ability. I would see her sometimes appear to be scanning the Daily 'Forvards', the daily New York Yiddish newspaper. When I would glance in her direction, she would put it aside with her usual quick push, the push she always used when she was caught looking at a printed page, as if she were studying it.

We never talked about this. While I was being taught to read and write in the first grade, I told her that my best friend Arthur Seagal's grandma, Mrs. Katz, was having her grandson teach her to read English. Grandma made fun of her..."An old bubbi like that, having her grandson teach her baby words to read! Shame on her! She should know better at her age!"

Me and Grandma listened to the radio together all the time. She listened to everything from soaps, to news, to Kate Smith at 'high' noon. My favorite program to listen to with my Grandma was 'The Lone Ranger', or as Grandma called it, 'The Long Ranger'. We also listened to opera, and she especially loved listening to the talent shows that mostly featured children. I spent countless happy hours with my Grandma. She taught me to speak a little in Russian and in Yiddish. She taught me how to amuse myself alone for long periods of time coloring or sorting buttons. Grandma was a tailor along with my Grandpa in their own shop, and even though they were always right there, sometimes I had to go back into their apartment behind the store so that they could take care of customers who needed custom fittings.

Grandma and Grandpa Goodman's shop, 'Goodies Fine Tailoring And Cleaners', was located on Neptune Avenue in Coney Island, Brooklyn. They lived and worked there through the very beginning of World War II. Their store was across the 'big' street, and then across another 'small' street, from P.S. 188, where I started school in kindergarten when I was just four years old. But, that's another part of my story. Where I was going right now was to explain how my Grandma would tell me stories.

I frequently spent nights with my Grandma and Grandpa Goodman. I would be parked there by my parents every time they wanted to go out and be with their friends. Especially in the summer, that seemed to be every weekend of my life from about X months to four years, when my sister was born. I would sleep in the bed with my Grandma. She and my Grandpa had separate bedrooms and I would sleep in her twin sized bed with her. Grandpa had a double sized bed that he always slept in all alone, even when I wasn't there overnight.

Every night when we would go to bed, Grandma would lay down with me, and while I rested in her warm and sweet-smelling arms, I would say "tell me a story", and she'd tell me a story, and then we would say "I lay me down to sleep" together. Just before we would shut our eyes, after she would formally ask the Sandman in to make me ready to 'gei schlofen', my Grandma would sing the same song to me, every single night I slept with her in her bed. The song was in her words, 'Mine Body Lies Over The Ocean'. My grandma would sing this with great passion. She would often cry, and so I would lay very still beside her and cry a little, too. I never knew why, and until I was about seven years old, I didn't even know that the key word was 'Bonnie'; I always thought that my Grandma was homesick for Russia, the land of her birth.

Most of the riveting stories that she told me were about what it had been like to be a baby and a little girl my age in Russia. Her 'told to me' stories were as good or even better then anything that anyone else could read to me. Maybe she couldn't write them down, but my Grandma could tell me wonderful stories about herself, and the enriched, sometimes terrifying, and frequently sad life she remembered from her own childhood.

Through the pages of this site, from time to time, I'm going to be telling her stories, my Mom's stories, and my own stories as I remember them. I don't know yet how it will all flow together, because I'm going to be doing it spontaneously, as it comes out.

Because my Grandma's storytelling taught me that everyone must have unique, memorable stories from their own unique lives, I'm inviting you to 'tell me a story'. I still love to hear life stories, and I'd love to hear the stories of your own experiences, or of the lives that have made significant contributions to your own. So please, tell me a story. Just find the comments section near the bottom of this page and let your story flow!

Love and hugs, el

Comments

Posted by Bunkster on August 14, 2004 at 09:40 PM

I'm so thrilled to see you telling stories on the Net! We have all waited for this for so long, but you knew that already.

Posted by JohnB on June 27, 2005 at 11:30 PM

Elaine and Roberta--Great web site!! More specifically, I want to second Elaine's eloquent example of the power of storytelling. Storytelling--oral and written, is (in my opinion) essential to the celebration and development of our humanity--as individuals and together as interconnected people. I didn't realize for many years how important storytelling was in my life--I took it for granted because I was raised by a mother and grandmother who told me stories--stories of excitement, stories of joy, stories of sadness, and more. Reading your story reminded me of many things in my own life . . . to share a couple. . . . What a coincidence; the Lone Ranger was my favorite radio show as a young child. . . . More importantly some of my many fond memories of my grandmother. From the time I was 10 until I was 14, my grandmother went with me to all my 15 or 20 baseball games each summer (my mother worked and couldn't go). My grandmother would sit behind the backstop with a broad sun hat or umbrella (hot dry sun in Denver), and she would "collect" for all my fellow teammates our gloves when we were up to bat, and our one and only batting helmet when we were in the field. She was a grandmother of sorts for all of us boys and she would wear about 8 or so wristwatches on her arms to take care of them while we were playing. More importantly, whenever one of us would jam (sprain)a finger during the game, we would run over to her and she would firmly grab the finger pull hard and yank it "back in place" so we could quickly run back and continue to play. Major League Baseball players don't know what they're missing because they don't have a designated grandmother sitting in the dugout or behind the backstop for them. When my grandmother passed away (when I was about 30 years old or so), quite appropriately and in a completely unplanned way, the hearse with my grandmother's remains drove us right by the baseball field on the way to the cemetary. It was that moment that I was able to beginning crying with both joy and sadness. . . . So, Elaine thanks for inspiring me to tell a story, and I hope all of us will continue to tell stories to one another in our everyday lives. JohnB

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